Mornings…

A lot of folks when traveling are do’ers; do this, do that, go there, get there, move here, tour groups, shuttles, packs on backs, hustle, move, pinpoints and places, get up, get out, get home, get bed, get up, get out, what's next to get.

I need the sounds, the smells, the senses bounced around. The places and destinations and itineraries are not for me. I like to slide cloth curtains apart, crack the wood-windows in the wall of my little one-twin-bed-and-a-desk room, saloon-door style, early in the morning, before the see’ers and do’ers wake from seeing and doing last night, and let it all come in. Pick up the scent of the fire stoking the neighbor’s breakfast stove on the other side of the concrete-block dividing wall topped with razor wire and broken glass. See the black smoke from the bus exhausts as they groan by outside the door and hear their balding tires squish along the stone streets as they start terrorizing both passengers and pedestrians. The car horns come to life slowly in the mornings before they overtake the sky by eight o’clock. Coffee is made from pumped lake water boiled on a flame, chewed and eaten, wide-eyed.

The sun makes it over the mountains, blares, and then life slows down...